Category Archives: Conference Blogging

Charlottesville and the University of Virginia have been in the news a lot recently. In Summer 2017, a series of white supremacist rallies took place in Charlottesville, culminating in the August 2017 Unite the Right rally which erupted in violence between counter-protestors and the white supremacists. In 2014, UVA was the focal point of a conversation about sexual assault on campuses after an article in Rolling Stone detailed, and later retracted, a story titled “A Rape on Campus.” A few years before, UVA’s president was forced out by the board and later reinstated, resulting in national conversations about the future of higher education centered around the scandal at UVA. While it wasn’t specific to our institution, some also viewed the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath as a community crisis, since it was traumatizing for many people and resulted in local conflicts.

In light of this recent string of traumas, and our lack of clarity about what to do when they occur, my colleagues and I wanted to start a conversation with other academic librarians about how we can respond when our communities are in crisis. A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to travel to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Library Collective Conference, where we facilitated a roundtable discussion centered on crisis response in libraries informed by our own experiences as librarians at UVA. I’ve been in Charlottesville for 14 months, so I was only personally present for the events of August 2017. I am very grateful to the colleagues I worked with on this session, Maggie Nunley, Paula Archey, Erin Pappas, and Jeremy Boggs, who were able to speak about their experiences at UVA during each of these events.

While Charlottesville has been the locus of a lot of national attention, campuses all over the country are dealing with crises in their local communities and the impacts of national events. We wanted to make this session an opportunity for people to talk about whatever type of incident they feel most impacted by or worried about, so we organized participants by type of institution and asked each group to choose a type of scenario they wanted to discuss. We asked participants to consider a series of discussion questions related to their incident, taking into account institutional, personal, and collegial levels of response. After discussing and writing down their ideas, each group arranged their thoughts in an incident response matrix. An example of the matrix, which we filled out using August 12th as an example, is pictured below.

This outlines our imagined ideal response. The actions we actually took are highlighted.

We created this matrix after reflecting on our own response to the rallies in August 2017. Of all the events we discussed, this was the one we felt the most prepared for. The Library, in collaboration with the University, was planning to host a day of reflection and conversation on the day of the rallies, with speakers, discussions, film screenings, and a community potluck. Around noon, the governor called a state of emergency and the events had to be canceled, although the Library was kept open. While we had prepared an institutional pedagogical response, it became clear that we were not prepared on other levels. For example, we weren’t clear on our gun policy and there was confusion about whether or not weapons were allowed inside building on campus. Since then, we’ve clarified our policy, and signs have been posted outside buildings to clarify that guns are not allowed in our libraries. While it’s obviously impossible to prepare for every possibility, in hindsight, it may have been helpful to consider these different levels of response prior to that weekend’s events in order to fill some of the gaps.

We also asked participants to consider the constraints that might prevent them from achieving the ideal scenario outlined in their response matrix. It will probably be no surprise to hear that participants had a lot of constraints to share, ranging from the constraints most libraries face all the time, like lack of resources, to more complicated problems of emotional labor, legal issues, power imbalances, and fear. Conversations like this one can be hard to have, because constraints vary so widely by institution and individual person, but it was interesting to hear the roadblocks that different people experience in trying to align their personal values with their professional responses. As each group reported out about their chosen scenarios, responses, and constraints, we asked them to also share actionable takeaways their group had generated. The conversation constellated around a few key needs, which I hope library administrators may take into consideration as they think through these same issues:

To feel empowered to respond by administration without fear of retribution or judgement.

Proactive policies and procedures for crisis response.

Frequent trainings for library staff.

Space to reflect on and share experiences.

While there are no right answers to a lot of the questions we discussed, this session made it clear that many of us feel unprepared in the face of crisis and that there’s a lot of interest in starting these types of conversations. I appreciate everyone who shared their insights with us and hope it will be part of an ongoing conversation about how we can support our communities and colleagues while practicing self care during times of crisis.

First, I do apologize for the late blog, but I wanted some days to collect my thoughts.

A couple of months ago, I found that I had been accepted to the Teacher Track for ACRL Immersion. This program was to take place in Burlington, Vermont. Last Sunday, I arrived and the program concluded last Friday. I have had some days to think about the last week, what I learned, what I need to do, and how I need to do it. There were so many things about Immersion that I could focus on, but instead, I will list what I learned (or didn’t).

The theme of the week was transformation and reflection. I had colleagues who had gone to Immersion many years ago and they told me that I needed to be prepared, because it would be a transformative experience. I agree, but my whole self (body and mind) was not completely transformed. Instead, I found myself thinking back and forth about an idea or concept and then being left with either a clear idea or continuing to be baffled. I would reflect about certain things during and outside of Immersion, which brings me to the next point.

I found that like Jon Snow, I know nothing.

Wait, maybe I do. A lot about what you thought about your teaching will be challenged. You will definitely doubt yourself, but that’s what the week is for. You’re there to doubt, reflect, hopefully transform your ideas, and reflect again (you’ll find that reflection is a huge thing at Immersion).

I learned that everyone has a different assessment technique and activity. I found myself pretty excited to take these ideas to American University Library. For those of you who know me, you know that I was not a huge fan of assessment…but I have clearly changed my ways.

The activities, exercises, and discussions that we did throughout the week, are meant to not only challenge the way you teach, but to look at things in a different light. For example, I know myself and a couple of other participants were definitely challenged when it came to active learning. Just because you have your students do some type of movement while in class, does not mean that it’s active learning. I know that might be a “duh” for some people, but definitely not for me. It is something I am still reflecting on.

I was comforted to know that some people at Immersion share the same insecurities I do. Whether it’s about teaching or being a librarian.

Through informal and casual conversations with other librarians at Immersion, I found us discussing some struggles we share or have. Whether it’s struggles with being a librarian, teaching, or other frustrations, it was clearly topics that we simply cannot share with our colleagues back at our own institutions.

No one leaves the program suddenly transformed into the “perfect teacher.” I do not believe that is the point of the program. What is the point, is gaining a new set of understanding, comprehension, reflection, and motivation of the topics taught at Immersion.

On a personal note, knowing I was coming to Immersion was exciting because I lived in Burlington when I was a child. It had been 20 years and Immersion gave me the opportunity to come back. I was in awe over how much the town had changed and kept asking myself, “how could my parents ever leave such a beautiful town.” They had their reasons, but it was a delight to have great Immersion faculty, great Immersion participants, and a great space to share ideas, thoughts, doubts, and breakthroughs.

I was also able to have breakfast with my first grade teacher and so that was the cherry on top of a great week. Until next time, Burlington.

Battling summer sinobronchitis — not allergies as it turns out — certainly puts a damper on conference travel. It has also contributed to feeling less than celebratory leading up to the Independence Day holiday. The fact that July 4th fell on a Tuesday made celebrating all the more awkward. This year I noticed recirculated articles advocating silent fireworks which seemed an excellent alternative given the current mood, and certainly spares animals (and the rest of us) the anxiety. Alternatively, quiet bursts of colorful light seem to aptly juxtapose my idyllic reminiscence of this holiday with the grief and frustration I’ve felt about the state of my country in the past year.

Similar highs and lows marked my experience of ALA Annual in Chicago the weeks prior. I always hope, perhaps naively, that conferences will both reassure and challenge me as a professional. These competing emotions are familiar companions to learning or undertaking anything enormous or new, and I can usually always find something new at ALA. This year there were only a few glimmers as far as programming and my usual professional networking. I got much more out of the professional-social networking I experienced both online and in serendipitous face-to-face meetings.

One particularly spectacular session I attended gave an overview of how libraries are supporting researchers’ text and data mining needs from both the licensing and technical ends. While the session also had a good balance of presentation and discussion, I still left feeling like a whole pre-conference could be devoted to this topic. The terrifyingly relevant session, Hacking the Web of Science data?…, also had me hanging on every word and fighting the familiar existential dread. Eamon Duede, executive director of Knowledge Lab & Metaknowledge Research Network at the University of Chicago, analyzed particular combinations within the Web of Science haystack to discover patterns in the attention research gets versus the disruption it causes. He found that big teams of researchers, who get a lot of attention and funding, aren’t the ones with disruptively new discoveries. He also noted patterns that show the majority of biomedical funding goes to helping address lower-level societal suffering, rather than targeting society’s more critical ills.

On the networking side, I joined a social gathering of those interested in FOLIO development. In addition to free craft beer and grilled cheese shooters (brilliant!), I got to talk to a wide range of colleagues, from friends working very closely with FOLIO functionality, to meeting others with no idea what FOLIO is. At an ACRL University Libraries Section social hour, I met and talked shop with several very cool Arizonans, and got a tip on the “wild librarian party” underway in the ALA presidential suite.

On a more professional note, I had a successful discussion with one of the four big deal publishers with whom my library will be negotiating in the coming year. I had intended to arrange this meeting in advance, but time got away from me. So, I was impressed that I got two reps to sit down with me on the spot and have a productive discussion on some pretty complex issues. Although it was just handshakes and elevator speeches to three other publishers, I navigated the exhibits floor with a refreshing confidence for a change.

One of the more disappointing events, unfortunately, was the highly anticipated closing keynote by Hillary Rodham Clinton. I decided to extend my trip and work in a visit to see my dad in southern Illinois where an extra overnight stay would be more manageable. This meant a three-hour drive through farmland highways. Since the weather and 55 mph roads permitted, I had the windows down and filled up on the olfactory memories of my fourths of July spent here as a kid. Perfectly timing my arrival back in Chicago just three minutes before the keynote start spared me the long line and still offered a pretty good seat up front.

Clinton’s keynote certainly sparked emotions, laughter, cheers, and even a bit of dancing. Her calls to “fight to defend truth and reason, evidence and facts” were reflexively encouraging, but the rest was nothing I’d not already heard top-name speakers say to librarians before. Given the brevity of the talk and without Q&A (but I get it), I just found it lacked the engagement and inspiration I had imagined. Call it silent fireworks, I guess just seeing the “first woman candidate of a major national party” in real life was apparently all there was to it. I left asking myself, how did that even matter?

Conf over. Headed back to hotel & airport. Have to miss HRC but that’s ok. I’ve had enough WW talking at me this week.

Looking back, I am realizing how this naive disappointment and my subsequent desire for an quieter 4th of July is nothing noble or humble. In fact, I suspect it illustrates my own privileged denial and fears more than anything. What’s worse, I know it perpetuates inaction. With the help of my social networks, I’m impatiently trying to move beyond just thinking on this. I do see ever deeper glimpses of privilege and the problem that presents to my professional values. For starters, though, I’m pretty sure my introverted conference fatigue on day three is privileged. I haven’t unpacked many good practical actions in response yet. But, I must now, knowing that this spark has been ignited for some time.

I recently attended my first Collective Conference in Knoxville, TN and found the two-day conference a valuable and—dare I say—fun experience.

If you’ve not heard of the Collective, the event promotes itself as a non-traditional conference with an emphasis on hands-on learning. Consequently, it features a lot more practical ideas and applications and not as much theory and abstraction as at a more traditional conference. When talking to my supervisor about attending this conference, she (genuinely!) exclaimed, “Oh, please go and bring back all of the cool ideas!” Yes, you heard that right—cool. How often do you hear about a scholarly conference being cool? Legitimately, the Collective is cool. Here’s why.

Networking

Ahhhhh networking. Even if you’re not actively job searching, it’s always a good idea to connect with other library professionals and share ideas and experiences. From start to finish the networking and camaraderie was so natural at Collective—it wasn’t forced, or a soul-sucking drag, or tedious. In part, this was because networking wasn’t simply a block of time or something you had to force yourself to do between sessions or in the line at the lunch buffet. Rather, cooperative work and time for getting to know colleagues was thoughtfully woven into every aspect of the event. Almost every session I attended involved sitting at a round table with other librarians and working out problems together or creating videos as a group or some other interactive activity. The fact that we were collaborating allowed for natural and meaningful interactions between attendees.

Technology and Design

A large portion of the sessions I attended were related to technology and/or design. This isn’t surprising; these types of sessions appeal to me as an eLearning Librarian. Even so, the offerings of the Collective were very fresh and highly relevant to attendees with an interest in both instructional technology and instructional design. And if you’re not interested in these areas, there were plenty of other sessions on social media, space planning, and digital scholarship, to name a few. A few highlights:

360 Degree Videos Made Easy
360 degree videos, also known as immersive videos, are video recordings that can be simultaneously viewed in every direction. In the past I had been intimidated by the technology, but Pete Schreiner from North Carolina State University libraries provided a hands-on workshop featuring a quick overview of 360 video resources including what software to download, best practices documents, and story board templates. The introduction to 360 was quick but thorough. Attendees then broke out into small groups using provided cameras, software, and laptops to create our own 360 videos. It was a lot of fun! I can’t wait to dive in deeper and create my own 360 videos for my library.

Give Your eLearning Objects the Beauty Treatment in a Flash
Juliene McLaughlin and Melanie Parlette-Stewart from the University of Guelph packed SO much into the one-hour session. I am the type of person that ruminates for far too long on design decisions. I want everything to be perfect, and I’m not naturally a quick decision maker. This session introduced a quick and collaborative design and brainstorming method for creating and/or redesigning learning objects such as videos and infographics. Three minutes may not seem like a lot of time to come up with 6 design ideas, but it forced me out of my comfort zone.

Knowledge, Reputation, & Image: Crafting & Communicating a Professional Brand
I believe Ashleigh Coren and Chanelle Pickens, from West Virginia University, began their session by stating that they were not experts, but that they simply were sharing “what worked for them.” This type of rhetoric was weaved throughout the conference: the idea of trying something new and sharing what was learned. This session inspired me to finally create the online professional website I’ve been meaning to work on for some time. Using journaling and short writing activities, attendees were able to brainstorm and practice creating artist’s statements. I kept my notes and know these activities will come in handy when I get to that point in my own professional website process.

Value

It can be difficult to budget in one more conference; after all most of us have limited professional development budgets. This conference is worth adding to your list. I’m not sure about other previous years, but the 2017 conference was $80 for two days. In addition to two days of outstanding learning opportunities, a few meals were also included as well as a vendor event with a complimentary drink and some fabulous conference swag. What stands out the most to me is the offsite catered dinner. The Collective crew provided transportation (in a multi-colored love bus!) to the venue where there was live music, a delicious catered creole dinner, and bar that included two drinks for each attendee. It was a fabulous opportunity to continue conversations from the conference during the day.

Location

If I HAD to pick one challenge of the conference, I would say that due to the constant collaboration and engagement, you may find yourself tired and in need of a recharge before conference end. Fear not—Knoxville provides plenty of opportunity for this. While I enjoyed grabbing lunch and hanging out with other conference attendees, when I reached my point of needing to unwind I very much appreciated wondering the streets of Market Square on a lunch hour. There are plenty of shops, restaurants, and bars all within walking distance. A few of my favorites include Union Ave Books, Chesapeake’s Seafood House, and Juice Bar Market Square.

Final Thoughts

This was the third iteration of the Collective Conference, and other attendees that have attended each year tell me that it has gotten even better each year. I’m hoping to attend next year, but for now I’m looking forward to applying the skills and knowledge I gained to my professional work. I’m currently working with a team of librarians to build an online learning module that will eventually be embedded within BlackBoard, and I’ve already been able to apply the Universal Design for Learning Principals and the Simplicity Design Cycle tool that I learned about from one of the sessions.

As I write this blog post, I realize it’s actually a challenge to fully describe the Collective experience. I suppose all I can say is, if you’re interested in a conference that is a coming together of the coolest and most cutting edge librarians planned by a team of librarians who thought through every detail from start to finish, I highly recommend the Collective.

The spring conference season is in full swing, and one weekend earlier this month it seemed like there were conferences of interest to me all over the place, judging from the hashtags in my Twitter timeline: #PLA2016, #SAA2016 (Society of American Archaeologists), #OAH2016 (Organization of American Historians), #DifferentGames2016, and #AERA16 (American Educational Research Association), just to name (more than) a few.

But of all of those great-looking events, most of my conference envy (and associated hashtag-following) was reserved for #maintainers, hashtag for The Maintainers: A Conference, at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. From the description on the conference website:

Many groups and individuals today celebrate “innovation.” The notion is influential not only in engineering and business, but also in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. For example, “innovation” has become a staple of analysis in popular histories – such as Walter Isaacson’s recent book, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.

This conference takes a different approach, one whose conceptual starting point was a playful proposal for a counter-volume to Isaacson’s that could be titled The Maintainers: How a Group of Bureaucrats, Standards Engineers, and Introverts Made Technologies That Kind of Work Most of the Time.

From the tweets I caught this conference looked fascinating, and you can read more about it in the shared conference notes doc (with many links to full papers) as well as in the essay Hail the Maintainers published in Aeon by conference organizers Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell the day before the conference. And since the conference I’ve been mulling over this tension of maintenance vs. innovation, and how it might be expressed in academic libraries.

Like our transit infrastructure, libraries require maintenance work to function, work that touches every part of our libraries: facilities, resources, services (in alphabetical order, not necessarily order of importance). This maintenance work, while crucial, sometimes seems easy to forget, especially as annual reporting season rolls around each year. Do we report the maintenance work we do? If we don’t report it, administrators, faculty, staff, and students outside the library might not know it’s happening, so I would argue that yes, we should report it.

But maintenance can’t be the only thing happening in academic libraries — as technology, access to information, and higher education more generally go through changes, libraries do as well. One danger of focusing only on maintenance is that it might prevent us from trying something new that could bring real benefits to us as workers or to the communities we serve. Adding new (or making changes to existing) facilities, resources, and services can also bring new requirements for maintenance. Perhaps there’s legacy maintenance that’s no longer needed, allowing us to balance between continuing and new efforts within the constraints of our time and budgets?

I bristle when I read the phrase “do more with less” because I want to resist the overwork and burnout that can happen to all of us, especially when necessary maintenance work can seem invisible or underappreciated. And I think that innovation as a buzzword can sometimes be used to encourage us to do more with less, to believe that innovation alone will overcome the limitations of funding and time. But I also don’t think that flat or declining budgets mean that we shouldn’t change — I think it’s worth our efforts to figure out if there is maintenance work that we can stop doing that can allow us to try something new (which, if successful, will of course require maintenance of its own).

Is maintenance the opposite of innovation in academic libraries? Can we do both? Must we do both? To be honest, I’m still puzzling through my thoughts about this, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts in the comments.